First up we have concept art from inFamous: Festival of Blood. Emilio Gandin, our Lead Environment Artist, wanted to point out some of these pieces of concept art. We wanted to add a new area to the title and explored the idea of doing catacombs below the Cathedral. The dark gothic, claustrophobic catacombs fit perfectly with the vampire lore. Once levels featuring catacombs were playable, we started to explore how Cole would navigate through them. We wanted a way for Cole to quickly move through the space and we came up with the backstory of the catacombs being used to smuggle arms thus giving us a reason to include the rails that Cole can grind on.

The Holiday Season is upon us and we get to take over the PlayStation Blog for a day! We are going to start with a new trailer, yes after releasing inFAMOUS 2 and inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood some of us have had some time to play some of the user generated missions, as well as catch-up on Skyrim and Uncharted 3. This trailer shows off some amazing creations with UGC… perhaps your mission is featured in the video. If you find a cool UGC mission be sure to tell us in the comments below.

We hope you had a great time celebrating the holidays with family and friends. We have some great news to keep the holiday cheer coming. What better way to rejoice in the upcoming New Year than to get great deals on some of your favorite PS3 accessories? Starting today through January 21st, you can check out our new “Play Days” promotion at most of the major retailers. Play Days offers you significant savings on selected PS3 accessories at up to 50 percent off.

The PS3 system provides a great entertainment experience on its own, with high-definition gaming and other great features like video streaming and access to a huge library of movies, games, and shows via the PlayStation Network, but PS3 accessories add another great way to enhance your gaming and entertainment experience.

Before 2012 rushes upon us we wanted to take a moment to say Happy Holidays from everyone here at the Naughty Dog kennel!

As you can see from our holiday card we’ve welcomed Joel and Ellie from The Last of Us into our cast of characters to play among with Drake, Sully, Elena, Chloe, and our UNCHARTED personalities. The year has brought about tremendous change as Naughty Dog has grown into a two team studio for the first time in our 17 year history. This shift is terrifically exciting as it signals an expanded talent pool in which we can share ideas, know-how, and techniques. As future projects evolve, we will continue to strive to maintain our high Naughty Dog standards and always endeavor to do whatever it takes to raise the bar for gaming.

I can’t wait to finally be able to play a proper FPS on the go, and that time will come when Resistance: Burning Skies launches for PlayStation Vita in 2012. Recently, Rob Huebner of developer Nihilistic talked us through the newly-revealed George Washington Bridge area of RBS. Since this is Day 1 of the Chimeran invasion, don’t expect a leisurely jaunt across the Hudson River; the bridge is lousy with Chimeran Scouts, armed with infrared beam-enabled sniper rifles.

In this video, Huebner narrates as producer Frank Simon drags and drops grenades right where he wants them. Also, take note of touch-screen melee controls, the first person cover system, the touch-activated weapon wheel, and the Sixeye sniper rifle’s alt-fire mode.

Brad Pitt (The Tree of Life) stars as renowned baseball general manager Billy Beane in Moneyball, available to own now in New Releases before releasing on Blu-ray and DVD next month. Follow the story of the man who shook up professional baseball forever. Jonah Hill (The Sitter) and Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Ides of March) round out the cast.

Woody Allen’s highest grossing film of all time – Midnight in Paris – hits the Movies section this week. See the late night comedic adventures of a writer in one of the world’s most iconic cities with legends of the past. The ensemble cast includes Owen Wilson (Cars 2), Rachel McAdams (Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows), Michael Sheen (Tron: Legacy), Tom Hiddleston (Thor), Marion Cotillard (Inception) and Adrien Brody (Predators).

As you may have seen from the photo story posted earlier in the week, I attended the Japanese launch of PlayStation Vita. It wasn’t all gaming and bento boxes: I used the time to catch up with as many senior colleagues and game developers as I could. You can look forward to full interviews in the run up to February 22nd’s North American Vita launch day, but in the meantime, here are five things that I didn’t know about PS Vita before, but do now.

What’s included in the box

PS Vita has designed by the same person as the original Walkman

PlayStation Vita is designed by game developers, for game developers

Welcome Park is your introduction to all the key features and it includes trophies

We’re only 5 episodes into the Official PlayStation Blogcast, and it’s already time for a clip show! We wrap up 2011 with a double episode delivering exclusive first details of the last PSN new game releases for the year (that’s Tuesday, December 27th) as well as the first PlayStation Store Update of 2012 (Tuesday, January 3rd).

Then we discuss the best PS3 and PSN games of 2011, as well as hear GotY picks of special guests from around the industry, such as Capcom’s Seth Killian, IGN’s Podcast Beyond team, Naughty Dog’s co-presidents, Double Fine Productions, Max Scoville from Destructoid, Game Informer’s Andy McNamara, plus N’Gai Croal compliments me on the blazer I wore at the VGAs (after talking about Portal 2). What’s your favorite game of 2011?